27 Gifts of the Holy Spirit Introduction

I Corinthians 12: 1Now concerning spiritual (gifts), brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

As Paul introduces the concept of Spiritual gifts he shows the relevance and importance of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life on individual believers as well as the entire body of the Church. Remembering from chapter 7:1 the Corinthians were writing to Paul asking for clarification of many concepts from which he developed Church doctrine. This chapter continues with Paul still answering questions. We don’t have the text of the questions but we do have the answers. Here it is about “Spirituals” or in the Greek pneumatikon. The word “gifts” is inserted in our English Bibles, as it was not in this verse in the original Greek. It will first appear in verse four. The name pneumatikon means “things of the Spirit.” So starts Paul’s exposition of a very important doctrine for the Church. The phrase “I would not have you ignorant” is very important to understand. Without a firm understanding of Bible doctrine we are left to error. Christ frequently began a condemnation of the religious leaders of His day with the expression, “You error because you don’t know the Scriptures” (Matt 22:29; Mar 12: 24; 27; Hebrews 3:10). He had His strongest condemnation for the religious leaders while showing compassion to the people caught under the false teaching of them.